U.S. Updates Clinical Guidelines for Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections among HIV-Exposed and HIV-Infected Children
"New guidelines to assist health care workers in preventing and treating the secondary infections that can afflict U.S. children exposed to, or infected with, HIV, were published by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new guidelines provide a reference manual for the treatment of these secondary infections, describing warning signs of potentially hazardous interactions between drugs used to treat HIV and its secondary infections, current standards for treating the inflammation accompanying the immune system recovery made possible by new anti-HIV drugs, as well as when to discontinue preventative treatment no longer needed after the immune system has recovered.

HIV cripples the immune system, leaving infected people more vulnerable than the general population to numerous other infectious diseases. These diseases, which ordinarily do not cause problems for people with fully functioning immune systems, are known as opportunistic infections. HIV-associated opportunistic infections are a leading cause of hospitalization and death among HIV-infected children in the United States. Some of these opportunistic infections can also afflict children who do not have HIV but who have one or both parents with HIV and specific HIV-related opportunistic infections..."